


pinstripes and porcelain

by preromantics



Category: British Actor RPF, Glee RPF
Genre: M/M, Multi, Ridiculous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-11
Updated: 2011-05-11
Packaged: 2017-10-19 07:03:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/198206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preromantics/pseuds/preromantics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Oh," Ashley says, "he hobbited off towards your room talking about, uh, Taylor Swift? Teardrops on his guitar and stuff. I think Kevin got it on video."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Original LJ post date: 3/3/11.

It's not like -- Chris doesn't deliberately avoid telling Darren. He maybe spares it a thought or two and maybe almost sends an ill-advised drunk text that says something along the lines of:  _hah you suck and aren't gay (so i guess you don't suck at all, actually, which is sad) so i got the original harry potter instead, just thought you should know! you should also know he actually sucks!_

(Chris is pretty pleased when he wakes up, Dan snoring lightly into the pillow next to his head, and he finds that particular text typed up on his phone but thankfully not sent. He's not exactly sure how Darren would've handled it -- he probably would've sent back a question mark and a particularly confused-looking emoticon and Chris would've never gone back to work or the west coast, ever.)

Anyway, Chris doesn't mean to catch Darren off-guard or anything, and it's not like Chris and Dan have actually even told more than a few people, so he doesn't even think to worry about Darren's reaction until the night of the dinner party.

The first thing Darren does when he walks into Chris' foyer is take his shoes off, which is something Chris has always appreciated about Darren in general. The second thing he does is hug Chris, (and Chris is completely over the way he used to stiffen up, back when he was teetering on the tightrope of a line that existed in his brain separating Darren from co-worker and horrible thought-process consuming crush) and the third thing he does is --

Well, it's probably not a classifiably human noise, whatever sound Darren lets out, and Chris only has a moment to spare a thought to what Darren dragging him from the foyer and into the little coat and errant-holiday decoration closet must look like to the rest of he guests, because -- well, Darren is shoving him inside. 

"Chris," Darren says, serious and up against his face. "Chris, okay, I thought at some point we maybe established this over Chablis and scrabble, but -- is there an actual reason you didn't feel like you should, oh, I don't know, forewarn me that Daniel Radcliffe was going to be at your little dinner party? I would've worn different shoes at least."

It really is the first time in a while (okay, a day or two) that Chris has thought how he was going to tell Darren,  _so, hey, I'm dating this guy. I think you'd really like him. You kind of share a common interest!_

"I didn't think to, no," Chris says, and it's pretty dark in the little closet, but Chris can still make out the squinty and narrowed expression on Darren's face. 

"I've never met him," Darren points out. 

Chris knows this, and he's pretty sure Darren isn't completely aware of the particular drunken personality trait that he possesses that seems to obsess on things like how much people (Dan, Anne Hathaway -- and Barry Manilow, for some reason, among others) are destined to hate him in person.

"This is blowing my mind right now," Darren adds. "I walked in your door and he was -- sitting on the arm of your couch! Drinking red wine, and I really always pegged him for more of a white wine guy, didn't you?"

"He's sitting on the arm of the couch  _again_?" Chris says, distracted. Just earlier that morning they'd had a conversation about the way Chris' couch was meant to be worn out evenly, and sitting on the arm just made it all patchy and unbalanced. (Dan had thought his reasoning was hilarious, and Chris' nitpicking had easily dissolved into making out, Chris using Dan's momentary distraction to slide him off the arm and over onto the cushions, and the opportunity was pretty great, so Chris had just sort of slid right back on top of him, because he could do that --)

"He -- does it do that often?" Darren asks. "What --"

"We're dating," Chris blurts out. "I mean, sort of. It's kind of new." 

"Holy shit," Darren says, after a long pause where Chris realizes they are kind of still in the closet, and if only Darren wasn't standing in front of the slightly-open door he could probably slip out and act like nothing had happened. Hopefully Lea hadn't noticed, because she was kind of shitty and over-enthusiastic about Chris getting  _"so much ass, Chris, I know you do but it's all secret"_  once people -- specifically Dianna, who always looked innocent but was Lea's number one glass-refiller -- started handing her things to drink. 

"Holy shit," Darren repeats, eyes wide even in the dim light. " _That's_  what you were doing in New York this summer? Lea's bet was that you were having kinky threesomes with Jon, who I don't think would tell her that, honestly -- at least I hope he wouldn't -- and his boyfriend, that dude from Star Trek, but compared to my bet she was way closer."

"I --" Chris starts. "What?"

Darren just shakes his head. "I can't believe you didn't tell me."

"You guys had bets on me? You realize I was in New York for work, right? Remember how I said that?" Chris says, completely distracted now. 

"Granted," Darren says, "I think Lea was drunk when we all pooled our money, and Cory --"

"Cory bet on my -- sex life? Seriously? I'm pretty sure he promised never to talk about sex in relation to me after that time he tried to give me a safe sex talk in the back of that LA club, like, a year ago --"

"What," Darren says, cutting Chris off and looking way too excited, "oh my god, that's amazing."

"No," Chris says, "no it's --"

The door to the little closet they are standing in opens up all the way before Chris can finish, and he momentarily can't see around Darren's chest so he has to shift closer to sort of hook his chin over Darren's shoulder to see -- 

"Oh," Chris says. 

"Hey," Dan says, drawing the word out and looking genuinely puzzled, one of his hands still holding the doorframe. "We were all just sort of waiting about -- so."

Out of the corner of his eye, Chris can vaguely see Darren trying to arrange his face, and suddenly he's being tipped off balance as Darren spins around, Chris falling against his back and out into the doorframe. 

"Hi," Darren says, facing Dan, his voice entirely over-enthusiastic. "So you're -- you're shorter than I remember!"

"Er," Dan says. 

"This is Darren," Chris offers, sliding out from behind Darren and wanting to press Darren's hand back against his side, since he mostly has it shoved out towards Dan's chest, hanging in mid-air. 

"This is so cute," Lea calls, and Chris can hear her heels against his parque until she leaves the living area entirely and presses into the little hallway that comprises Chris' foyer. "Both of the Harry Potters!"

Chris wants to slip back into the little coat room behind him for a second. 

"Oh, Dan says, comprehension lighting up his features in a way that distracts Chris for long enough that he can register it as vaguely adorable, "oh -- hey, yeah. We were never properly introduced that one time, even though I wanted to stop over and say something on the press carpet. Your show -- great stuff."

"Are we getting mildly or entirely shitfaced tonight in honor of your return home, Chris?" Darren says, after a moment of standing very still and staring at Dan. 

Lea laughs, grabbing at Darren's out-stretched arm and pulling him away from the space in-between Chris and Dan. "Come on, Mark is mixing in the kitchen."

Chris feels like he shouldn't even bother pointing out the only supply of alcohol he has in the house is whatever everyone decided to bring, because he's pretty sure he saw way too many brown paper bags as people walked in earlier. It's a moment before he registers Dan's hand pressing against his lower back. 

"So," Chris says, turning to him, feeling vaguely at a loss. "These are my -- friends."

Dan grins, a little cheeky, sliding his hand over until his arm is slung around Chris' waist. "Do all of your friends shove you into coat closets, then?" he asks. 

Chris has to laugh, at that, a little too loudly. "Only Darren," he says, and he's almost embarrassed over how fond his voice sounds -- totally over that (entirely not recent) phase in his life -- except he just feels sort of warm when Dan squeezes tighter against his side so they can walk towards the kitchen. 

  
-

  
Chris does his best to be designated house keeper, or host, or something -- he's trying to be considerate and also stay sober enough to make sure his "friends" don't puke all over his furniture or record collection at some point during the night. (He's also been making a point of not drinking too much when these sort of gatherings end up taking place in his apartment, because he doesn't want to be on the end of a Chris-keep-your-ninja-weapons-away-from-your-castmates talk from Ryan Murphy anytime soon again, after the unfortunate incident where Lea almost broke Naya's face. Somehow.)

His dinner party guests, however, including his recently acquired boyfriend, don't seem to have the same sober intentions. Chris is pretty cool with his life right now, but he's really still holding out for the part where he can invite people over to a dinner party and actually have dinner and talk and maybe play Trivial Pursuit or charades. 

"I like your friends," Dan says, hot against his ear, somewhere around midnight. He's toting around a red plastic cup with a wide and ridiculous grin on his face, his cheeks flushed a permanent sort of red, and Chris still doesn't know much about mixed drinks, but he's pretty sure Mark is just filling the red plastic cups with a little bit of everything. Chris has been resolutely staying away from them. (He did, however, let Mark mix him a Long Island iced tea, and he watched him make it, even, but it was a lot stronger than he expected.)

"They're all so bright and lovely," Dan adds. He lowers his head closer to Chris' ear and looks around the room fugitively for a moment -- Heather is (rather unsuccessfully) trying to teach Lea (for the hundredth time) how to correctly pop-and-lock, and Cory is shooting zombies on Chris' flatscreen with Kevin while Jenna and Naya give them surprise handicaps along the way. 

"Except that one guy," Dan says. "I think he likes me. Or you. It's a bit hard to tell. He's kind of like a puppy, the --"

"Darren?" Chris asks, and come to think of it he hasn't seen Darren in at least a half hour, not since he made Darren and Lea get off his kitchen counter before they broke his favorite vintage spice rack. Or themselves, since Glee started shooting again soon, and the Ryan Murphy castmate responsibility speech really does loom prominently over Chris' head at all time. (Seriously, Chris is the youngest, all of these ridiculous people should be looking after his welfare and also looking at where they are stepping, oh my --)

"Heather," Chris calls, "if you make Lea pop and lock into that vase I swear I'll make you wish you were never born, and I don't even care if it's Ikea surplus from five catalogues ago."

"He'll go all ninja on your ass," Ashley adds, from her lording position on the couch, watching the zombie shooting and the pop-and-locking at the same time. Out of all of Chris' friends, Ashley is probably the most sane. Which, wow, doesn't say much for Chris' friends, because Ashley got them kicked out of Disneyland like two months ago, but still --

"Hey," Chris calls, distracted by Dan's weight against his side, "hey, Ash -- have you seen Darren?"

She has to think it over for a second, and Chris notices the numerous red cups scattered on his coffee table in the time it takes her to answer. "Oh," she says, "he hobbited off towards your room talking about, uh, Taylor Swift? Teardrops on his guitar and stuff. I think Kevin got it on video."

"Damn straight," Kevin calls from the floor, right in the middle of a swear-heavy commentary about his zombies. 

"Darren," Dan says, drawing out the name. "He's a bit -- funny."

Chris sighs. "You can say that again," he says, and he makes the decision to leave everyone alone briefly in the open space between his living room and kitchen and head towards his bedroom, Dan trailing behind. 

  
-

  
Darren is not crying teardrops over his guitar in Chris room, but he has acquired a guitar, and is strumming it in a rather melancholy way that looks off-putting on his face.

"Hey," Chris says, "hey, Darren, I think you scarred my -- my Daniel." He's still not entirely comfortable using the word boyfriend, and not just because it's new -- because it's, well. It's Chris, and he's never really had a reason to use that word out loud before. 

Darren doesn't look up from the guitar. Instead, he strums it, and sings something softly that sounds sort of like,  _the problem is they're both so beautiful in pinstripes and porcelain fair_ , but Chris decidedly chooses to become temporarily deaf. 

"That's quite lyrical," Dan says, stepping forward away from Chris, apparently not having gone temporarily deaf. 

"It's a song," Darren says, finally looking up. "It's about life."

Before Chris can, like, reach out and pull Dan away from the drunken guitar-strumming train wreck that is the former unavailable object of his affections on the floor, Dan is stepping forward to crouch down on his knees only a few inches away. 

"You," Darren says, leveling Dan with a gaze, "are like, really awesome."

Dan nods, though Chris isn't sure if he's just nodding or if he's agreeing. (Chris agrees, of course, but he's not going to say anything and make this worse. He's going to impose a strict no-drinking rule in his apartment from now on and if that makes everyone hate him, well, they won't get to sample the selections from his International Fair-Trade Coffee Of The Week club while nursing hangovers from now on.)

"You've said so," Dan says, still nodding. "You told me about a fifteen times."

"But," Darren says, voice pitched full of emotion -- Chris steps closer just in case he needs to save Dan from Darren like, passing out on him out of being overwhelmed, and Chris finds himself sinking down onto the floor as well. "You're practically responsible for half of my  _life_." 

"You know what else is responsible for you at this moment?" Chris cuts in, "half a bottle of Grey Goose and probably some rum."

"I think we should have a pirate theme party where Mark dresses up as Captain and only serves rum," Darren says, momentarily distracted from both Dan and his guitar. 

"No theme parties centered around rum," Chris says. 

"Pirates, though," Dan says, surprising Chris and making him want to shake everyone currently on the floor. 

"You know what sucks?" Darren says, suddenly and heavy, leaning and setting his guitar aside. 

"What?" Dan asks. Chris is unsurprised to find him carefully paying attention to Darren all of the sudden, but he still feels like something accidentally tipped the axis of the earth a few degrees sideways. 

"That Chris is a sucky friend who never told me all the important things about New York," Darren says. 

"Chris isn't --" Dan starts, pausing to adopt Darren's vocal infliction, "sucky."

They are about two side-steps left of this conversation taking a turn in a direction Chris is not ready to handle, ever. "Alright," he says, "we need to get everyone off the floor and later, in the morning, we can all deal with your issues in the morning in a sober way."

"I don't have issues," Darren says, automatically, but he crawls onto his knees, very nearly head-butting Dan in the stomach, and stands. 

"Pinstripes and porcelain? No issues? Really?" Chris says.

"Do you want to hear the next line?" Darren asks, reaching a hand out to help Dan off the floor before Chris can get there. "It goes:  _one half let me get to second base on t-v and the other half to home base in my head._ "

"That bit's lacking," Dan says, after a moment where he sways on his feet, looking thoughtful.

Chris tries to -- herd? Shepard? Bodily maneuver? Who knew two drunken, inhumanly attractive and dorky drunk guys would be so hard to move in a direction anywhere not in the vicinity of Chris' bed.

Dan hits the mattress first, swinging around and grabbing Chris' arm to pull him down too, and Darren stands at the edge of the bed, frowning, before Dan pats the other side of Chris' hip with a sort of sloppy enthusiasm, and Darren melts down against Chris' side.

"Chris," Darren says, warm and slow, "Chris, Chris -- you have the best bed ever. Why have I never slept on your bed before?"

"Probably because you would've been too tempting," Dan says, looking a little proud at himself and his wisdom, and Chris wants to die a little. His life makes absolutely no sense.

Darren screws his face up for a second, and then looks away from Dan to Chris. "I totally offered to make out with you, that one time. Or seven times, I think," he says. "Eight?"

"Chris," Dan says, also looking up at him, "really? And you didn't?"

"We're not talking about this," Chris says, high-pitched and urgent. The times Darren had offered to make-out with him (all seven, and Chris kept count only because he couldn't not) were all very un-serious or had to do with acting or because Darren was excited over the theatrical re-release all day marathon of Star Wars movies down at some seedy place in the valley. They weren't -- Darren was never serious.

"You should make out with him now," Dan says, his eyebrows drawn together. "Just to be poliet."

No parties at Chris' house ever. At all. "I think it's time for Darren to leave, actually," he says, "and join the rest of the horrible pests in my house on the living room floor."

"I could snog him first," Dan says, ignoring Chris and sounding way more reasonable to Chris' ears around the white-noise rushing through them than he has any right to sound. "Then I could tell you if it's worth it, or if I'm better."

"I'm totally worth it," Darren says. "Like L'Oreal."

"What?" Dan asks, and Chris feels completely torn between accidentally finding the entire situation sort of cute, in a Twilight Zone sort of way, and waiting to be Punk'd. Or Incepeted, which is probably the new modern-era Punk'd.

"Have you ever made out with yourself?" Darren adds, face brightening, and he's already sort of leaning forward towards Dan over Chris' chest, "how can you compare me to you on Chris' behalf?"

"I can't tell if you're more off than I thought or actually really fantastic," Dan says, leaning further over Chris' chest, too, until he's only an inch away from Darren's face.

"I'm always fantastic," Darren says. And then they're -- Chris is pretty certain, probably 85% or so, even though statistics weren't his strong point, that he's actually passed out face-first on his kitchen floor or something, because the object of his first real, new relationship and the object of his very real barely-repressed interests are  _making out over his chest_. On his  _bed_. 

"You should just --" Chris starts, except he can't find it in himself to say 'stop'. 

Chris knows -- has recently had the chance to learn, at least -- that Dan likes to kiss with a little bit of teeth, all pressure and pull, and that he's generally enthusiastic and sloppy over anything else, so he sort of understands when he watches Darren's mouth part around a little whining noise, the pair of them pressing closer over Chris and kissing more.

Chris isn't sure what he wants to happen next (though he's pretty sure, no matter the horrible outcome tonight will bring in the morning, he now has a share of guilty shower-masturbation fantasies that will last him for the rest of his life) but he doesn't expect both Darren and Dan to break away, laughing sort of breathlessly and heavy with their foreheads pressed together. 

"What just happened," Chris says, mostly to himself. 

"The best," Darren says, leaning up and surprising Chris entirely when he presses his lips, open-mouthed and slick, against the underside of Chris' jaw for a second, not enough time for Chris to process the feeling at all before Darren is laying heavily down against his side, right on top of his arm. 

"I do like this friend after all," Dan says, sliding down on Chris' opposite side. "You should really do that with him, later."

"But --" Chris starts, because they'd kind of just decided they were dating and they hadn't even talked about the important parts, and Chris is pretty certain new relationships shouldn't really start with making-out with other people. 

"Shush," Dan says, eyes falling closed, his head resting against Chris' shoulder. 

"So comfy," Darren mumbles, and Chris is left sort of looking at nothing at all, a little overwhelmed and heady, while both Darren and Dan fall asleep against his chest.

  
-

  
Dianna peeks into the room, later, just as Chris is trying to figure out if the inevitable morning awkwardness of waking up in the morning with two bodies wrapped like drunken sloths around him is worth the -- well, the warmth and unsettling but amazing thoughts bouncing around in Chris' head.

"They both fell asleep," Chris whispers, sort of helplessly. Dianna, wonderful, not-an-obnoxious-drunk-Dianna just smiles towards the bed from where she's peering around the door. Then she takes a picture, and Chris revises his opinion of her.

"I won't show Lea until she's hungover," she says, "I promise."

"You're an awful friend," Chris says. "I have horrible friends."

"I'll make sure everyone falls asleep aware of where the bathroom is and not near anything expensive," Dianna adds. 

"You're an okay-friend," Chris amends. He feels warm all up along his side where Dan is curled against him, the weight of his arm thrown across his chest too-heavy where his hand is stretched out, fingers curled in over Darren's shoulder. Darren makes a sleepy-groaning noise into the crook of Chris' elbow, though, and Chris can't find it in himself to move. Plus, he feels a little dizzy and a little bit not-entirely-sober -- though not in a way that will have him writing disturbing songs or offering lyrical advice on such disturbing songs anytime soon -- so when Dianna closes the door shut behind her, Chris relaxes down against his own pillow and falls asleep faster than he means to. 

  
-

  
Chris wakes up because Darren is trying to talk into the skin of Chris' neck. 

"Shit," Darren groans, loud and gritty against Chris' skin in a way that is waking Chris up way too-fast, before he can even process the fact that, oh yeah, he's sort of stuck in the middle of some horrible twisted fantasy conjured up by his brain and jetlag. 

"Chris," Darren says, more seriously, though his voice still doesn't seem to be working, "what --"

"Shut up," Dan says, muffled into Chris' shoulder. "Shut up."

"He's not a morning person," Chris whispers, pleased to know that sort of information, and to be able to tell Darren, though he isn't sure why that part is pleasing as well. He's really tired.

Darren shifts, raising his head to meet Chris' half-open eyes. "Are we just not going to talk about -- this?" 

"Now you're viewing this like a sane person," Chris hisses, "I swear to --"

"I swear," Dan chimes in, still not lifting his head, "I will have you both murdered and it will be very bloody and no one will know because I'm rich."

Darren snorts into Chris' neck. "I can't believe you're dating such an asshole," he says, right as Dan flings a hand back over Chris' chest and blindly swats at Darren's arm. 

"I can't believe you have a crush on my asshole," Chris says, and then Darren is gasping for breath and Dan is actually lifting his face from Chris' side. 

"I can't believe you just said that like that," Dan says. "You're --" he stops, though, bleary-eyed with his face scrunched up, searching for something to call Chris.

"He is, isn't he," Darren agrees, empathetically, and Chris curls his arms around both of them to press their heads down, because he can reach and also because he meant -- something entirely different. 

"Go away," Chris says, "both of you."

They don't go away, though, and Chris doesn't move to push either of them away because, hey, if he can claim a backwards-universe day in which he has both Dan and Darren wrapped around him through the rest of his morning sleep time, well -- Chris isn't going to complain. He's still never entertaining at his house again, ever, though.

  
  
  



	2. bonus future!ficlet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonus super-in-the-future-after-the-unposted-sequel-fic ficlet! About jello shots! Awesome.

"No, no way. There is an official ban on alcohol in my house, remember? Also on pirates," Chris says, holding his hands up to block Mark's path into the house while also trying to make a grab for the truly ridiculous pirate hat on his head.

Lea peeks under his arm, her grin wide enough that Chris is entirely certain she'd already sampled the contents of Mark's various brown bags. Harry throws a thumbs up from over Mark's other shoulder. 

"Jello shots, though," Darren says, sounding sort of wistful at Chris' side. 

"I'm in favor," Dan says, settling his chin over Chris shoulder. "Definitely in favor of jello shots."

"This is unfair," Chris says, mostly to himself, mostly because Dan's chin is directly over a bite mark that Chris can't remember the origin of, but definitely feels through the cotton of his shirt. "I hate you all."

"There's a rule," Lea says, pushing under Mark's arm and into Chris' foyer, "that states there must always be jello shots to commemorate threesomes."

Chris is unsure if bodily shoving Lea out of his house and also duct taping her mouth constitutes as a criminal act. Dan's already pro-offered silence on illegal activities before, though, so he could probably get away with more than duct tape.

"Well shit," Kevin says, somewhere in the apparently massive group of people hanging around Chris' hallway, "does that mean it's true? Chris Colfer's a pimp now?"

Everybody sort of follows Lea inside, and Chris lets Darren loop an arm around his waist to pull him towards the kitchen, Dan already ahead of them both, eagerly inspecting the contents (aka an entire liquor store) that Mark is spreading out on the table. 

"I'm not a pimp," Chris says, sort of belatedly. Darren pats his hip. 

"Of course you aren't," he says, consolingly. "If anything, Dan is, but that's irrelevant because, hey, jello shots."

"I hate everything," Chris says to the room at large when Darren goes and joins Dan at the counter, standing close enough that Dan has to loop an arm around his lower back so they don't topple over, and everything about Chris' life is probably glaringly obvious to everyone in the room, and he can't tell if he should be beaming smugly or pulling a fire alarm. 

"Hey," Naya says, coming up behind Chris and startling him forward, so she has to catch him in a half-hug. "You should know, Lea already started the betting pool on how many shots you have to take before we get a show. I'm in for $50 bucks on five shots for some making out, and I could totally use the cash towards that new Chanel bag I've been eying."

"Wait," Chris says, untangling himself from her arms and stepping up to the counter. If all of his friends are going to consistently keep betting on his sex life -- especially now that he has one -- he totally wants in. "If we're betting on me, in my house, while breaking all of my house rules, I want in. A hundred on myself, because I can totally last through more jello shots than any of you before I embarrass myself in public."

Lea grins, though it's a lot more like a smirk. "Are you factoring in your boys, here?" she asks, nodding across the counter, where Dan and Darren are hooking their arms together to take their first jello shots together. 

Chris barely resists rolling his eyes, and doesn't really care when he ends with with a sort of fond, amused grin on his face instead. "No way, I'll bet a hundred on them embarrassing themselves three shots in."

Even Cory laughs at that, settled back against Chris' fridge, and Lea raises her shot across the counter. "I'm in love with this night already," she says, and Chris grabs Mark's pro-offered shot and drinks with her, letting Darren pull him into his side and leaning back into Dan's palm on his back around them both as the jello slips cool down his throat.

  



End file.
